Asia

Srinagar, Feb 25 (AP/UNB) — Three rebels, a counterinsurgency police officer and an army soldier were killed Sunday during a gunbattle in Kashmir, officials said, as shops and businesses shut down to protest a sweeping and ongoing crackdown against activists seeking the end of Indian rule in the disputed region.

The fighting triggered large anti-India protests and clashes as hundreds of residents thronged the village of Turigam in the southern Kulgam area and barraged troops with stones. An army officer and two other soldiers were injured in the fighting, which was still raging later Sunday.

Government forces opened fire with shotguns and tear gas to quell the protesters, injuring at least half a dozen civilians, residents and emergency workers said.

Police and paramilitary soldiers also patrolled streets in Srinagar, the region's main city, and enforced a security lockdown in its downtown area in anticipation of protests and clashes.

The crackdown began Friday night. Police are mainly targeting Kashmir's largest political-religious group, Jama'at-e-Islami. The group is dedicated to the right to self-determination for the Himalayan region, which is divided between India and Pakistan but claimed by both in its entirety.

Indian authorities have so far arrested at least 400 Kashmiri leaders and activists, escalating fears among already wary residents that a sweeping crackdown could touch off renewed anti-India protests and clashes. They are detained in police stations and jails across Kashmir.

Among those arrested were Jama'at-e-Islami head Abdul Hamid Fayaz and Mohammed Yasin Malik, an influential pro-independence leader who heads the Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front.

Sunday's strike was called by the Joint Resistance Leadership, or JRL, which comprises three top Kashmiri leaders, including Malik.

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, another JRL member, denounced the arrests and said India's latest crackdown would fail as "people won't give up their struggle for freedom."

"India is already at war with Kashmiris. Now they're warmongering with Pakistan. We again warn (Indian authorities) to de-escalate and talk as no force can push us into submission," Farooq said. "There's a going to be serious ramification, a reaction to this (crackdown). It'll force more youngsters to armed militancy."

The crackdown comes amid high tensions between India and Pakistan following the Feb. 14 suicide car bombing of a paramilitary convoy by a local Kashmiri militant. Forty Indian soldiers died in the attack.

India quickly blamed the attack on Pakistan and promised a "jaw-breaking response." Pakistan warned India against linking it to the attack without an investigation, and offered dialogue to resolve all issues, including Kashmir.

Residents fear the crackdown could be a prelude to a military strike by India against Pakistan or tinkering with Kashmir's special status in India's constitution. India's Supreme Court has yet to give its verdict on a petition against the special provision that it has been hearing for more than a year.

Indian authorities rushed about 10,000 additional paramilitary soldiers to the already highly militarized Kashmir Valley. Indian soldiers are ubiquitous in Kashmir and local residents make little secret of their fury toward the presence of the soldiers in the Himalayan region, calling them an occupying force.

State Gov. Satya Pal Malik said in a statement Sunday that the additional troops were deployed for India's general election, due in the next few months.

Referring to the crackdown, he said: "This is purely related to the (Feb. 14) attack. The response of security forces is guided solely by the need to counter both the impact and any further action that may be taken by terrorist groups who are still out to disrupt our country."

Rebels have been fighting since 1989 against Indian control in Kashmir.

About 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and ensuing crackdown. Most Kashmiris support the rebels' demand that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country, while also participating in civilian street protests against Indian control.

Kabul, Feb 24 (AP/UNB) — More civilians were killed in Afghanistan last year than in any of the previous nine years of the increasingly bloody conflict, according to a U.N. report released Sunday, which blamed the spike in deaths on increased suicide bombings by the Islamic State group and stepped up aerial attacks by U.S.-led coalition forces.

In its annual report, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said 3,804 civilians were killed last year, the highest number since the international organization began tallying figures in 2009. Another 7,189 were wounded.

The report comes amid efforts to find a peaceful end to the 17-year war, which have accelerated since the appointment in September of U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who is to begin another round of talks with the Taliban on Monday in the Gulf state of Qatar, where they maintain a political office.

U.N. envoy Tadamichi Yamamoto called the spiraling number of civilian casualties "deeply disturbing and wholly unacceptable."

Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians live as refugees in their own country after fleeing fighting in their home provinces. Tens of thousands more have fled their homeland, seeking safety in neighboring countries and in Europe.

According to the report, 63 percent of all civilian casualties were caused by insurgents, with the breakdown blaming the Taliban for 37 percent of the dead and wounded, the Islamic State group for 20 percent, and a collection of other anti-government groups for the remaining 6 percent.

The government and its U.S. and NATO allies were blamed for 24 percent of the dead and wounded civilians caught in the crossfire, many of them killed in stepped up aerial attacks, most of which are carried out by the U.S. and NATO.

The report said civilian casualties at the hands of Afghan and international forces were up significantly in 2018 compared to 2017.

"For the first time since 2009 when it began systematically documenting civilian casualty figures, UNAMA recorded more than 1,000 civilian casualties from aerial operations," the report said.

The U.S. military says it carried out 6,823 sorties last year in which munitions were fired __ the highest number in the last six years.

Last year "witnessed the highest number of civilian casualties ever recorded from suicide attacks and aerial operations," according to the report.

Since the U.N. began documenting civilian casualties 10 years ago, more than 32,000 civilians have been killed and another 60,000 wounded.

"It is time to put an end to this human misery and tragedy," said Yamamoto. "The best way to halt the killings and maiming of civilians is to stop the fighting. That is why there is all the more need now to use all our efforts to bring about peace."

The U.S. and the Taliban have openly embraced a strategy of talking while fighting, with the Taliban carrying out near-daily attacks on Afghanistan's beleaguered security forces.

Afghan Forces are battling the Taliban throughout the country with support from their U.S.-led coalition allies. The coalition and Afghanistan's security forces have also been pounding Islamic State positions, particularly in eastern Afghanistan, where the affiliate is based.

Srinagar, Feb 24 (AP/UNB) — Shops and businesses have closed in Kashmir to protest a sweeping crackdown against activists seeking the end of Indian rule in the disputed region.

Police and paramilitary soldiers patrolled streets in the main city of Srinagar on Sunday and enforced a security lockdown in its downtown area in anticipation of protests and clashes.

The crackdown began Friday night. Police are mainly targeting Kashmir's largest political-religious group, Jama'at-e-Islami, which espouses the right to self-determination for the Himalayan region, which is divided between India and Pakistan but claimed by both in its entirety.

The crackdown comes amid high tensions between India and Pakistan following the Feb. 14 suicide car bombing of a paramilitary convoy by a local Kashmiri militant. Forty Indian soldiers died in the attack.

India, Feb 24 (AP/UNB) — At least 150 people have died and about 200 people have been hospitalized after drinking tainted liquor in two separate incidents in India's remote northeast, authorities said Sunday.

The victims of one of the most deadly bootleg liquor-related incidents in India were mostly tea plantation workers in Golaghat and Jorhat districts in Assam state, said Himanta Biswa Sharma, the state's health minister.

Assam is India's largest tea-producing state, with more than 1,000 plantations producing more than 50 percent of Indian tea.

The workers consumed the tainted liquor laced with methyl alcohol, a chemical that attacks the central nervous system, on Thursday and started falling unconscious. They were rushed to nearby hospitals and the death toll rose to 150 by early Sunday, police and health officials said.

Sharma, the minister, said about 200 people who fell sick after drinking the toxic liquor are in hospitals, some in critical condition.

Officials said 50 patients have died in the past 24 hours.

The owner of a local brewing unit and 13 others have been arrested, said top police official Mukesh Agarwal. He said police are pursuing other people believed to be connected to the racket as part of an ongoing investigation.

Beijing, Feb 24 (AP/UNB) — A total of 21 people have been killed and 29 injured in a bus accident blamed on faulty brakes at China's largest silver mine in the country's north, the Emergency Management Ministry said Sunday.

Meanwhile, five fishermen were missing after their boat collided with a cargo ship almost ten-times its size on Saturday afternoon in the sea off the eastern province of Zhejiang.

A search was underway and further investigations into both incidents are ongoing.

Saturday morning's accident at the mine operated by the Yinman Mining Co. in the sprawling Inner Mongolia region occurred when a bus carrying 50 miners to the underground operation crashed into the side of the tunnel. The mine also produces lead and zinc.

A working team from the ministry was sent to "guide and assist" in the rescue and investigation at the accident site.

Executives of the company have been placed under travel restrictions while the investigation is underway, the ministry said.

Yinman is a subsidiary of Inner Mongolia Xingye Mining Co., Ltd. listed on China's Shenzhen Stock Exchange, and produces around 201 tons of silver annually, according to state media.

China is the world's third-largest producer of silver, producing 2,500 tons of the metal in 2017, a little more than twice what the U.S. produces.

Photos posted online showed what appeared to be the scene where the bus rammed head-on into an outcropping in the narrow tunnel.

Despite huge safety improvements in recent years, scores of Chinese miners die each year, largely in gas explosions, underground floods and collapses due to structural defects.